


Starts With a Spark

by Auber_Gine_Dreams



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Blood Kink, Blood and Violence, Casual Sex, Dom/sub Undertones, Explicit Sexual Content, Hunter Training, M/M, Major Character Injury, Masochism, Painplay, Power Imbalance, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, There is a lot of injury, Vampire Hunters, Whipping, and a lot of blood, implied threesome, side gyuhan, side minshua
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:41:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22137247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auber_Gine_Dreams/pseuds/Auber_Gine_Dreams
Summary: He’s not sure when it started, exactly. Maybe the first time Jeonghan showed him how to throw a knife, sunlight turning his hair into spun silk. Maybe Jeonghan sweeping his legs out from under him, bloodstained knuckles and dark eyes staring down at him until he surrendered. Maybe it’s always been there, hiding in plain sight.Jeonghan has never touched him kindly, but the mind is so, so strange.He doesn’t really want him to. He just —wants.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 52
Kudos: 215
Collections: Haggly Holidays!





	Starts With a Spark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deadlylampshades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlylampshades/gifts).



> So, here's the thing. If you aren't into blood, please skip this fic. Every tag is there for a reason. I was given a very specific green light and I didn't hold back.
> 
> The Power Imbalance tag is there because Joshua is Jeonghan's apprentice/student. They are still the same age in this, but if this is something that you aren't comfortable with, go ahead and back out now.
> 
> Title is from "Resentment" by A Day To Remember.
> 
> Now that this isn't anonymous anymore I can freely say that I love you so much Ayesha. My goal with this was to Get you and I dare say that I succeeded ;)
> 
> This fic has a playlist!!! If you'd like to listen, it's [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/709llqeJlANUxd5GVvGW9B?si=fvJu1cM2SkKpZMvp2gs01Q)

_Do you want it?  
_ _Do you want anything I have?  
_ _Will you throw me to the ground like you mean it,  
_ _reach inside and wrestle it out with your bare hands?  
_ _-Richard Siken_

  
  
  


The whistling is always loud. No matter how many times Joshua hears it, it overtakes the sound of rustling leaves and cicadas until it’s all-consuming. 

Whistle. Crack. Pain, bright and searing. 

He doesn’t scream anymore.

“If they ask you about me, what will you say?” a voice asks behind him.

The whip again. Right next to the first lash, expertly spaced. Joshua would know. Just deep enough to ooze blood. Some of them will scar. Over the last six months Joshua’s back has become a tapestry. Marks that tell a very specific story.

He’s been on the post for a few hours, probably. Part of this is mental fortitude. How long can he be left to his own devices without breaking from anticipation? 

Jeonghan is always silent when he approaches. The first lash sneaks up on him every time.

“I have no Master. I have no home,” Joshua says in the loudest voice he can muster. The words are practiced, beaten in so that he doesn’t have to think about them.

Another whistle, another lash. He grits his teeth.

“But you’re a hunter, yes?” Jeonghan’s voice is icy, a poisonous lilt. Joshua still isn’t sure if he’s pretending to act like one of them or if he’s just a sadist. “You learned from someone. Clan or Master, boy. Born or created. That’s how you vermin work.”

The whip hits him across the previous lashes, slices a little deeper. Joshua screams. Blood trickles down his skin.

“I have no —” Joshua begins again, but Jeonghan doesn’t give him the time to speak. The whip is relentless, some lashes so deep he can’t keep the pain inside.

“Master. I have no Master.” 

Joshua manages to get the words out. By the end he’s whispering them, chanting like a prayer. His entire back feels slick like he forgot to towel off after a bath.

Footsteps. Jeonghan reaches out and grips his shoulders, slides a finger down one of the cuts.

It hurts. The pain is unbelievable. It feels like Jeonghan’s finger digs in, presses into the fresh wound and it’s blinding. Joshua shivers, unable to make a sound past the pain.

“Giving up already?” Jeonghan asks, lips close enough to his ear that he can feel how warm his breath is. “How long have you been my student, hm?” he strokes his hand from the top of Joshua’s back to the bottom. A tight, wounded noise escapes him. “You’re so weak. A _child_. If Jihoon hadn’t come to me personally I would never have taken you in.”

Joshua met Master Jihoon when he was nineteen. He’d been walking the university campus late at night and stabbed a vampire that was attacking a student. It was some kind of dumb luck that led him to dig a wooden pencil out of his bag, to shove it into the monster’s neck.

Master Jihoon ran up a few minutes later, after the other kid had run away. He took one look at Joshua, at the vampire clawing at her throat desperately on the grass, and sneered.

He staked the vampire and turned to him.

“You’ve got potential, kid. I’ll see you around.”

It took a year for Jihoon to come back for him, to push him through the threshold of Jeonghan’s cabin and explain that accepting meant learning to withstand pain, learning how to fight and kill. It meant blood, so much blood. 

He’s still not sure why he agreed to be a vampire hunter. He could have gone to a witch and had his memory wiped instead, continued his university life in blissful ignorance of the monsters in the dark.

“They won’t hurt you like this,” Jeonghan says, finally facing him. He’s breathing hard. The tips of his fingers are stained with Joshua’s blood. “No, what they’ll do is much, much worse.”

 _Then why are you doing this?_ Joshua wants to ask. He bites his tongue until his mouth tastes metallic.

“This is the only way to learn,” Jeonghan continues, like he’s reading his mind. He steps closer, close enough that he could reach out and touch if he wanted. “If your body can’t handle this, then you’ll barely survive being bitten, let alone capture.” His face is blank when he looks at Joshua. “To become a hunter is to sacrifice everything. There is no room for emotion here, and certainly no need to feel pain.”

Jeonghan has a scar over his right eye. Pretty. Clean. Almost like makeup, tinted pink like it’s never quite healed. The oldest vampire Jeonghan ever killed transformed her nails into claws and tried to gouge his eye out. It’s lucky, really, that he can still see. 

Even with the scar, he’s the most beautiful man Joshua has ever known. 

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe when you stop bleeding.” Jeonghan turns toward the cabin without another glance and Joshua knows, they’ve done this enough. He could be out here all night.

His back is burning, skin itchy as the blood starts to clot. He tries to regulate his breathing but he’s panting, harsh and ragged. He watches Jeonghan walk away and the only thing he can think about is sinking his teeth into Jeonghan’s neck while he fucks him.

He’s not sure when it started, exactly. Maybe the first time Jeonghan showed him how to throw a knife, sunlight turning his hair into spun silk. Maybe Jeonghan sweeping his legs out from under him, bloodstained knuckles and dark eyes staring down at him until he surrendered. Maybe it’s always been there, hiding in plain sight.

Jeonghan has never touched him kindly, but the mind is so, so strange.

He doesn’t really want him to. He just — 

wants.

  
  


♰♰♰

Hunters are born or created. 

The only time Joshua has ever heard these words is when Jeonghan is training him to withstand torture, but it’s a very clear cut difference, easy to pick up on.

Hunters from clans are almost like spoiled rich kids, clothes always clean, weapons shiny and new. Joshua has even heard of some of them using silver bullets instead of stakes, killing from afar like they’re hunting game instead of monsters.

Hunters that are created are different. Most end up in the life because their families have been massacred. And so they hunt the old way, stakes and silver knives, blood soaked hands. The scars that litter their bodies tell the story of their loss, their rage. Joshua is an outlier, having stumbled into it by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Master Jihoon is from the Lee Clan, one of the oldest families of vampire hunters, and is the only clan hunter Joshua has met that looks like he was created. Jihoon is small, slight and almost pretty, but power cloaks him, turns him into a man that few people will even look in the eye. 

Jihoon has a jagged set of fangs scarred into the side of his neck, right over the jugular. Joshua’s heard the whispers, rumors that fly around their network. How the greatest hunter the Lee clan has ever produced fell in love and almost gave it all up, how his fiance was strung up in their bedroom, the bed soaked through in her blood. How Jihoon was so overcome with grief that when the vampires came for him, he didn’t struggle. 

How Jihoon was almost bled dry before the final string snapped inside of him, and he ripped the vampire’s fangs out of his neck and killed anything that moved until he was the only thing left.

It seems true enough. In his heart, he believes it. Vampires and other supernatural beings are still fairy tales to most people. Hunting pays just enough to live, involves a lot of glossed over stories and careful evasion. Most hunters marry someone already in the life or stick with casual flings. It’s not a life you can walk away from, and if Jihoon really tried to leave it all behind it would take something unbelievably cruel to bring him back.

Kim Mingyu is the opposite of Jihoon in so many ways it’s laughable. The first born son of his clan, Mingyu has this naivety about him that rubs Joshua the wrong way immediately. He’s bright eyed and scar free. He wants to be the hero and save everyone and Joshua has waited and waited for Jeonghan to put the world into harsh perspective for him but it never comes. Four months into his training and Mingyu is still so eager, so gentle and kind it makes Joshua’s skin crawl. Mingyu grimaces the first time Jeonghan puts a stake in his hand, reaches down almost reflexively for a gun he’s no longer allowed to carry. 

Joshua hasn’t settled on whether he wants Mingyu whipped by Jeonghan’s expert hands or if he wants a vampire to drain him dry and dump his body in the street. Probably the latter. He doesn’t seem worthy of Jeonghan’s punishment.

Jeonghan sends them on their first joint hunt when the lashes on his back are healed. Minor stuff, a rogue vampire spotted in an abandoned house outside of a small town. He doesn’t even go with them, just waves them out the door, turning the pages of a worn book without sparing them a glance. 

“If you can’t handle this on your own then you don’t belong here,” he tells them before the door clicks shut behind them.

Joshua is the one that finds the vampire. At first glance, she’s a beautiful girl lost in the woods, flowing black hair and blood red gown. Her lips are stained and Joshua can’t tell if it’s lipstick or blood in the dark. Mingyu is next to him and he lets out a soft sound as she passes in front of their hiding place.

“You’re sure she’s a vampire?” he whispers. It’s too loud. 

Joshua narrows his eyes at him before turning back to the vampire. She’s still walking, pretending she hasn’t noticed them. Joshua can tell though. She’s edging toward the far side of the path, trying to get away from them without being noticed. He gives Mingyu a curt nod and pulls a knife out of his back pocket, flicks the blade open and hurls it without preamble. It soars between the trees, not slowing down until it sinks into the vampire’s shoulder. 

She screams, and Mingyu is pale beside him. Joshua takes off in a run and Mingyu hesitates, footsteps faltering in the leaves before he finally follows. Joshua is on edge right away. He doesn’t believe in Mingyu’s skill and he definitely doesn’t trust him to keep them safe if things take a turn.

Joshua reaches the vampire first, throws his weight against her and pins her to the dirt. She opens her mouth to bite or, if she’s still pretending, to scream. Joshua balls the sleeve of his shirt up in his hand and covers her mouth with it.

Mingyu catches up at about this time, the vampire’s eyes wide with fear, trembling under the weight of his body.

“What if she’s not?” Mingyu asks. He’s breathing a little heavy. He’s not nearly as in shape as he should be. The blatant favoritism Jeonghan shows to Mingyu is more obvious than ever.

“She is,” Joshua insists. He jerks his head to where the knife sticks out of her shoulder. “Look at the blood. If she was human there’d be more, right?”

Mingyu looks at the knife, the blood that has trickled sluggishly from the wound. He squats down and pulls the blade out of her shoulder. It’s silver. Custom made at Jeonghan’s request. It sizzles as it goes, and the vampire screams under Joshua’s palm, thrashes against him in an effort to get free.

Vampires are strong. The only reason she hasn’t been able to get away is because she hasn’t fed. The whole point of the mission is to kill her before she starts.

She tries to speak against Joshua’s hand, voice muffled. He narrows his eyes at her and holds a hand out to Mingyu who passes him a stake wordlessly. 

“You can say whatever you want, vampire, but the result will be the same. It’s my job to kill you. You won’t make it out of this alive.”

He moves his hand and her first reaction is to lunge at his face, snarling. Joshua puts the wooden stake at her neck, the point pressed tight to her jugular. It’s not as effective as silver, won’t burn her on contact but it gets the point across. She stops and stares into his eyes for a long time before laying back in the grass. 

“I’m Siyeon, just passing through,” she says, voice small but an unmistakable melodic quality to it. In another life, she might have been a singer. “I’m not going to feed. I’m leaving tonight. Just let me go.”

Joshua’s mind flashes to university, to the boy he saved, blood and dirt and screams. He grits his teeth and presses the stake tighter to Siyeon’s throat.

“But you will. Somewhere, you’ll give in and drain some innocent human. I won’t let you leave here alive.”

Siyeon’s eyes flash red and her hand flies to Joshua’s throat, squeezing so tight so fast his vision goes black. He drops the stake and she throws him backward. He hits the ground a football field away hard enough for his head to bounce off the grass.

So much for her not feeding.

It takes him a moment to clear the fog, and when he stands up she’s running full speed toward the trees. He won’t be able to catch up with her but he runs anyway. He has to try.

He can’t let her get away. He can’t let other people die. He can’t disappoint — 

A shot rings out, vibrates through the night air. Siyeon drops to the ground. Joshua stops and looks back and Mingyu is sighting down the barrel of a pistol. He fires another shot into her body. She lets out a primal scream, something distinctly not human, and Joshua takes off running, pulls a stake out of a holster on his calf. When he gets to her she’s crawling away, mouth red with blood. He rolls her over and she growls, lunges at his throat but he knocks her back to the ground, pins her between his legs and shoves the stake into her chest.

Her body jerks, eyes wide. He presses it down until she stops moving. Her body goes slack in the dirt and under the light of the moon turns to ash and blows away on a breeze. 

Mingyu catches up with him as the last of the ash dissipates. He squats down and reaches out, brushes his hand over Joshua’s face. There’s a bruise forming on his cheek from the way he hit the ground. It’s not the only thing that hurts. His back is one big ache, sure to be even worse in the morning.

“Are you okay? I didn’t react fast enough. I’m sorry,” Mingyu says, words rushing out of him. 

Mingyu’s touch is gentle and something opens up in Joshua’s chest. He’s kind of forgotten what it feels like to be touched like this, to be cared for, if only for a second.

“Y-yeah,” he breathes out. Mingyu’s eyes are locked with his. He can hardly breathe. “Fine. I’m fine.”

Mingyu’s hand traces his jaw, thumb pressed just under his lip as he tilts his face toward the moon to get a better look at the forming bruise.

The contrast of it is jarring. Mingyu is a mediocre hunter at best, but he saved Joshua when it mattered. He cares deeply about helping people even if he doesn’t put in the work to make it happen. His hands are big and warm and even if most of the time Joshua can’t stand him he wonders what they would feel like wrapped around his waist, tangled in his hair.

The adrenaline after the hunt is always like this. Joshua forces himself to look away from Mingyu’s eyes. His hand lingers for a moment before he pulls away. 

Joshua spends the drive back to the cabin torn between thinking of how Jeonghan will mock his injuries and how Mingyu might kiss them better, if Joshua wanted it.

It’s worse that he can’t decide which one he wants more.

♰♰♰

  
  


“He should be back by now,” Joshua says, panting in the doorway of the cabin. There is a shallow cut on his ribs and each drop of sweat that rolls down his body makes it burn. He props against the frame while Jeonghan takes his boots off. “He’s late. A _week_ late.”

Jeonghan gives him a strange look as he straightens up.

“Do you really care?” he asks. He unbuttons his shirt and a sliver of his chest is visible. Joshua is torn between staring and looking away. “I was under the impression you hated him.”

“I don’t hate him,” Joshua rushes out, “I just don’t —” Jeonghan’s eyebrows raise and he has no choice but to bite back the rest of the sentence. _I just don’t know why you treat him like he’s better than me when he’s not_.

Mingyu’s been on an infiltration mission, sneaking into a vampire’s lair to get information by any means aside from killing. That would come later. It was only supposed to take two weeks.

Jeonghan leans his weight against the kitchen table. His shirt is a crimson red, jeans dark wash. His hair is starting to get long, strands of bangs hitting the tip of his nose. His body is all hard muscle and strong hands and an even stronger will. 

Joshua can’t be caught staring, especially when there’s no explanation for it. He looks at the floor as he walks further into the cabin, stopping at the edge of the kitchen counter. He keeps his eyes trained between Jeonghan’s face and the wall behind him, looking without looking.

“Mingyu is from the Kim clan. His only choice is to survive this mission.” Jeonghan pulls out a chair and sits. “If he fails he’s an embarrassment and if he dies it’s the same.”

He gives Joshua a look, like he’s searching really deep inside of him for something important. 

“There’s nothing good for hunters, Joshua. Born or created, it’s all the same. The difference is that Mingyu has a family he can go back to, as long as he’s worthy of their name.”

They don’t talk like this often. Jeonghan feels like a god most days, untouchable and out of reach. There is an ending to the sentence. _Mingyu has a family he can go back to, but we don’t_. Joshua’s parents died the year he started university. Jeonghan, well, Joshua can only assume that he’s a hunter because his family was taken from him. He doesn’t think about it too much, about how between the three of them he and Jeonghan are the most alike.

“I think we should go after him,” Joshua says, barely above a whisper. 

It sounds too much like defiance and he sucks in a breath, waits for Jeonghan to get angry but it never comes. 

“You’re bleeding all over my floor. Come here,” Jeonghan says instead. He grabs him by the wrist and tugs him closer. Joshua isn’t actually bleeding that much. The cut is more shallow than the lashes he’s gotten, but Jeonghan’s already rummaging through the drawer next to him, digging out first aid supplies. 

_You’re the one that threw a knife that close to me_ , he thinks as Jeonghan pushes his shirt up. 

Joshua looks down. Blood trickles out in time with his pulse. It’s a little deeper than he thought. Maybe the training is actually working. Maybe he doesn’t feel pain the same anymore. 

Jeonghan’s hands are rough and the feeling of his calloused fingers on his bare skin is almost too much. 

This. 

Jeonghan never touches him gently, but when he’s bandaging the wounds he creates on Joshua’s body, there’s a kind of gentleness to it. Even after he’s been on the post for hours, Jeonghan takes him down without a word, leads him to some comfortable surface in the cabin and cleans up the mess he’s made of him.

The slice across his ribs is still trickling blood. Jeonghan soaks some gauze in alcohol and presses it firmly against the wound. The burn is intense, stinging through his senses, but Joshua doesn’t make a sound. He leans his weight into the press of Jeonghan’s hands, one on the wound, one on his waist holding his shirt out of the way. It’s dizzying.

Jeonghan is slow and careful, meticulous as he cleans away the blood. He wraps dry gauze around his ribs, tight but not constricting. He doesn’t look up into Joshua’s face. It doesn’t make it any less intimate. If anything, it makes Joshua’s chest tighter, some strange kind of longing squeezing tight tight tight around his heart. 

It’s so hard to separate the two. Pain from pleasure. Desire for approval from desire, plain and naked and raw. Being a worthy student from being worthy of — 

Jeonghan’s hands trail over his skin as he lowers his shirt back into place. Heat simmers in Joshua’s stomach, follows the path left by his hands all the way down.

Jeonghan meets his eyes and Joshua is almost convinced he can see the same simmering desire behind the walls of mental fortitude Jeonghan has spent his life perfecting.

“You should dodge next time,” Jeonghan says roughly, squeezing Joshua’s waist before dropping his hands. 

Joshua nods, his entire body in flames.

  
  


♰♰♰

Joshua does, in fact, try to be discreet as he slips out of his window. Jeonghan probably knows what he’s doing, certainly guessed it earlier in the afternoon, but he won’t try to stop him. This, too, is part of his training in a way. To defy but succeed, or to defy and fail. It’s up to him.

Sometimes Joshua can’t believe they are the same age, but Jeonghan has been a hunter since he was a teenager, since before Joshua even knew about atrocities committed by vampires, before he even considered that monsters were real at all.

He memorized the address the day Mingyu left. He expects an old Victorian mansion, or maybe an abandoned shipping warehouse, but instead he finds himself in front of a gated community.

This is a problem. Hunters do their best to keep things secret. Vampires are just a fairy tale, after all. Ghosts and demons aren’t real. It’s going to be hard for him to get Mingyu out in one piece while also making sure other residents don’t know what’s really going on.

Slipping through the gate is easy. Finding the house is even easier. It’s a new build at the very end of the street, two stories with glossy vinyl siding. The door is painted red. Crimson. The only sign that something is a little off. Joshua sneaks around the entire perimeter, takes note of every window, every source of light. 

He’s almost convinced he’s got the whole thing wrong, that Jeonghan gave Mingyu some kind of relaxing getaway and lied about it, but he catches movement in the second story window, a flash of brown hair, a hand pressed against the glass, bloody.

He doesn’t think after that, discretion ruled out by the danger Mingyu is obviously in. Jeonghan’s training is ruthless but efficient. Joshua’s body works on muscle memory, no thought needed at all to scale the side of the house and slip into the room next door. 

It’s too easy. Way too easy. Joshua sneaks along the hall anyway, looks through the crack in the door and sees a man shoved against the wall.

It’s Mingyu. Definitely. His neck is littered with fangs marks, some scabbed over, some still oozing blood. There is a man pressed against him, crushing the bones in his wrist like a piece of paper. Mingyu’s face is white.

“Who are you working for?” the vampire asks. He squeezes Mingyu’s wrist until there is an audible crack. 

Mingyu screams. The vampire chuckles. Joshua sees red.

“You hunters think you are so skilled,” the vampire growls, his hand still tight on Mingyu’s broken wrist, “Did you think I would not smell the blood of my kin all over you? Do you take me for a fool? You offer yourself to us like a common whore and you expect what, exactly? That we will spill our Master’s secrets at the taste of your blood?”

Mingyu shakes his head over and over, words apparently lost on him. Joshua takes a silver knife out of the sheath on his calf and makes it just inside the doorway when the vampire turns around, manic grin with teeth stained red. 

“And here is another one,” the vampire says, eyes flashing. “He looks much easier to break.”

Mingyu is tossed to the side of the room and it’s the split second that Joshua considers running over to him that is his undoing. The vampire is on him before he has time to blink, pressing him into the hallway with unbelievable strength. He can feel his lungs constricting from the pressure. 

“Tell me, boy, who sent you here?” the vampire asks. His hand goes straight to Joshua’s throat and turns his head to the side. It’s like time stops. Joshua keeps silent and the vampire lunges in, sinking fangs deep into his skin.

The pain is near blinding. Jeonghan’s words echo through his mind. _What they’ll do is much, much worse_.

It feels like acid is replacing his blood. He can’t make a sound.

The vampire stops drinking and turns his face back to the front. Joshua watches his own blood run down the vampire’s chin.

Clawed fingers dig into his side. Joshua doesn’t scream.

“I will only ask you once more. Who sent you here?”

Movement behind them. A knife hurtles toward them and the vampire spins them around, flings Joshua so hard that he flies down the hall.

Glass shatters.

Joshua hits the ground, the breath stolen from his lungs and the moon is huge above him. There is a shard of glass sticking out of his abdomen.

The vampire flies down and lands softly on his feet. He strides forward with the confidence of immortality, convinced that he has survived centuries and that he will survive this, too.

His boot hovers casually over the glass sticking out of him. 

“You have not answered me.

Joshua takes a breath only to scream as the vampire puts weight on the glass. It’s thick paned, probably expensive. It cuts through his flesh easily. 

This pain, though, he has trained for. He can take it. In the vampire’s place, he imagines Jeonghan. His soft blonde hair and the way the whip looks wound around his hand. He can change the pain then, morph it into something much more tolerable.

The vampire’s face contorts in rage and he brings his foot down on Joshua’s face.

“I will drain your blood and feed your corpse to my roses,” the vampire says.

Joshua turns and coughs blood onto the grass.

In a flash, the vampire hits the ground and Joshua rolls away. Mingyu has him pinned down, both forearms pressed into his chest. The vampire snarls, teeth sinking into Mingyu’s skin but he just grunts and stays put. 

He’s really underestimated Mingyu. The pain from just one bite is unbelievable, and Mingyu is littered with them, takes the vampire’s fangs like it’s nothing.

Joshua forces his body to move. The glass falls to the ground. His blood drips in hot lines down his leg, but he takes one step, another, another, until he’s in front of Mingyu. He barely has time to breathe before the vampire knocks Mingyu off and tackles Joshua into the grass. 

He can’t see what happens next, but he feels it. 

It feels very much like his body is being split in half. The vampire grins, his hand burrowing deeper into the wound left by the glass.

Joshua’s vision swims. He does scream, this time, so loud he can’t even hear it.

The vampire jerks above him, blood trickling from his mouth. Mingyu appears in his line of sight, smirk on his face. The stake sticking out of the vampire’s chest is dark with blood, and Joshua gasps as he turns to ash and is carried away by the wind.

Mingyu falls to his knees next to him with a shaky breath. It’s quiet in the aftermath, silence ringing in his ears. Joshua focuses on his breathing. In and out. In and out. The moon seems closer now, impossibly bigger.

“Joshua. God, can you stand?” Mingyu whispers after a while.

Joshua bends his knees. Easy. He gets his hands under him, pushes himself into a sitting position. Blood gushes out of his side and the edge of his vision goes black.

Mingyu’s face is pale. Out of the two, he’s in better shape. He gets to his feet and helps Joshua up with both hands. The whine he lets out is pathetic, and the first thought to flash through his mind is _thank god Jeonghan isn’t here_.

Mingyu slings an arm around his shoulders and guides him slowly, one step at a time. Joshua can’t find the words to tell him that he snuck here, that there is no car to ease their journey because he didn’t plan to get this hurt.

Mingyu picks up on it by the time they make it down the street. 

“I can go get Jeong —” Mingyu starts.

Joshua stops in his tracks, rushes out _no_ so fast he coughs. The inside of his mouth is coated with blood. Mingyu nods grimly, wraps one of Joshua’s arms around his waist. Two broken men, they take it one block at a time.

They’re half a mile from the cabin when Mingyu finally speaks again.

“Why — why did you come for me?” Mingyu stutters out. He coughs and spits blood on the ground at their feet.

Joshua can’t see past the blood running into his eyes, the cut left behind from the vampire’s boot bleeding just as badly as his side.

There is only a limited amount of energy left is his body. He can answer or he can get them inside the cabin, but only one of the two. So Joshua shakes his head, one quick jerk, and shuffles them on.

When they make it to the path leading up the stairs, the front door swings open so hard it slams into the front of the cabin. Jeonghan is dressed in loose sweats and a sleeveless shirt and under the light of the moon he’s glowing, an angel, the vision the Joshua in the bible must have seen when God spoke to him.

Jeonghan’s eyes are impossibly wide as he runs barefoot down the steps. Joshua is so tired. It feels like a dream. Jeonghan looks at the path they’ve walked, looks between the two of them before his eyes land on Joshua, hard and angry and underneath  
that — 

Joshua’s heart beats once, hard. The hole in side pours fresh blood and he takes his hand off Mingyu’s waist to press it against the wound. He’s so numb it doesn’t even hurt, but static appears in his vision all the same.

Jeonghan is still looking at him but it doesn’t matter. He takes a shaky breath and opens his mouth, but before Joshua can register what he’s saying the world goes black around him.

♰♰♰

Joshua wakes up in the familiar warmth of his bedroom. Clean sheets and wood walls and an IV in his hand. Jeonghan is turned away from him, eyes on the door. Mingyu is asleep, his face pressed into the bed by his knees. He’s not sure how long he’s been here.

It’s the IV that bothers him. Some liquid is hanging off a coat rack, drip, drip, into his body. Did Jeonghan do this? Was he really that close to death? Does Jeonghan have actual medical equipment stashed away for emergencies?

There’s a knock. Jeonghan steps back from the door and a man in a white coat enters the room. He gives Joshua a soft, easy smile. Jeonghan’s head whips around and the weight of his gaze makes him cough. There is too much happening all at once.

The doctor walks to the bed.

“Hello, Joshua. I’m Minghao.” His voice is so calm. It’s almost soothing. “You almost died. You’re lucky that Jeonghan had a favor to cash in on me, otherwise you might have ended up in a real hospital with a lot of explaining to do.”

Minghao pulls the sheets down to his waist. Joshua is naked, and the horror of this realization is dampened by searing pain as Minghao presses a hand into the gauze at his side. He doesn’t scream, but he does gasp and squeeze his eyes shut. He wonders vaguely if there are still tiny shards of glass in his skin.

“It looks like the fucker tried to dig out your liver. You killed it at least, right?”

Joshua looks up. Minghao’s eyes are hard, cold and angry and it clicks.

“You’re a hunter,” Joshua says, voice so hoarse he can barely get the words out.

Minghao gives him a very loaded, wry smile.

“Was. Now I just put you all back together.”

There’s a story there, but Joshua is sure he’s never going to know what it is.

Mingyu startles awake with a gasp, sitting up so fast that the sheet makes it down to Joshua’s hips. He’s dangerously close to being exposed, but Mingyu is looking at him with barely concealed tears and Joshua decides it doesn’t really matter. 

“At least two more weeks,” Minghao says. “No getting out of bed until the stitches come out. If you lose any more blood you’ll either have to go to a hospital or you’ll die.”

Joshua nods. He wonders absently if Jeonghan will really let him sit in bed that long, if he’ll have to do some other type of training to make up for it, bedrest as psychological torture sounds like something he would do.

Minghao turns toward Jeonghan. There’s a look between the two of them, some unspoken thing. Jeonghan looks away first. Joshua sears it into his mind, the memory, the secret that exists there.

“I hope it was worth it. We’re even now. If you call me again, you’re in my debt, and I really don’t think you want to be there.”

“It worked out pretty well for Wonwoo, don’t you think?” Jeonghan smirks. “If I need something I can always ask him, or maybe Junhui.”

Minghao slams Jeonghan into the wall hard enough to shake the door on its hinges. Jeonghan grins, all teeth, and Joshua’s entire body breaks out in chills.

“You really don’t want to do that, Yoon Jeonghan. If you ever talk about what you don’t know again I will make you regret it.”

That dampens Jeonghan’s manic grin somewhat. He puts his hands on Minghao’s shoulders. There’s dried blood there.

“There’s no room for love in this life, Xu Minghao. You should have remembered that lesson.”

Minghao’s hands clench tight in Jeonghan’s shirt before he steps back. He takes a deep breath.

“I don’t think I’m the one that needs to hear that.” Minghao turns back to Joshua, glances at the gauze wrapped around his side before turning back to Jeonghan. “You aren’t Jihoon, Jeonghan. You never have been, even if you’ve always thought so.”

Jeonghan’s expression is closed off.

“Jihoon is the only reason I’m alive. We can’t all forget our masters as easily as you.”

Minghao sighs and runs a hand through his silver hair.

“You’re a walking reminder of all the bad Jihoon has ever done.”

Minghao leaves without looking back and Jeonghan wipes his hands across the front of his shirt, relaxes his posture when the sound of a car engine reaches them. Joshua remembers to breathe in stages. His ribs hurt. His whole body is aching, actually. Two of the fingers on his left hand are taped together. He doesn’t remember hurting them.

Mingyu is holding his right hand under the sheet, out of sight. The comfort is immediate. 

“Are you okay?” Joshua asks softly.

Mingyu shakes his head, dismissive. His right wrist is in plaster. It’s lucky, really, that the vampire broke his non-dominant one.

“Don’t worry about me, god. You’re the one that fell two stories and almost died.”

Jeonghan’s eyebrows rise at that. He comes close enough that he could reach out and touch. He doesn’t.

“You did something wrong, didn’t you.” Jeonghan states it. Of course he knows. “I send one student on a simple mission...whatever you did, I promise you won’t do it again. Not after this.”

Joshua has known from the moment it happened what he did wrong. That split second, the moment he thought about Mingyu instead of the vampire in front of him. There really is no place for feelings, at least not when hunting.

Joshua speaks without thinking.

“I’m sorry. Jeonghan, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I —”

The only reason he stops is Jeonghan’s hand, firm but gentle, on his shoulder. Bare skin on bare skin. It’s like lead in his stomach, the shame, the feeling that he’s done something wrong, the ache of wanting more.

“You heard the doctor. I’m out of favors. You can’t get hurt like this again.” Jeonghan gives his shoulder a careful squeeze before he lets go. “Mingyu, we’ll resume in the morning.”

Mingyu’s mouth falls open and Joshua has to bite back a smirk.

“My wrist —”

Jeonghan holds up a hand.

“If both of you are this injured then I’ve obviously done something wrong. That will be fixed starting tomorrow. If you aren’t in the back field at dawn I will make you regret it.”

Jeonghan leaves without waiting for Mingyu to reply. He shuts the door softly and just like that they are alone together. They’re still holding hands under the sheet. 

It’s quiet for a long time, the only noise the steady drip, drip of the liquid flowing into Joshua’s hand.

“Thank you,” Mingyu says finally, voice hoarse. “I probably would have died if you hadn't come for me.”

Joshua looks up to meet his eyes. The corner of his mouth quirks up into something he hopes looks like a smile.

“You saved my life, it’s only fair that I save yours.”

Mingyu shakes his head, the hand wrapped around his squeezing tight. It’s like a hum, an electric current at the base of Joshua’s skull. 

_He’s going to do something_ , Joshua finds himself thinking, and then Mingyu’s hand moves to his cheek. And then they’re kissing, a press of warm lips. It’s soft and gentle and it feels like Mingyu is trying to make it better the only way he knows how. 

There is no place for this on a hunt, but maybe in the warm quiet of the cabin it’s allowed. Joshua sighs against Mingyu’s lips and tangles a hand in his hair. It’s easy to tune out the voice in the back of his mind, screaming that Jeonghan is going to be upset at him for this. It’s easier when Mingyu deepens the kiss, slotting their lips together better, body trembling almost imperceptibly on the sheets.

When they break apart Mingyu’s cheeks are tinged pink, an almost sheepish grin on his face.

“I’m sorry. I just —”

Joshua shakes his head, cutting him off.

“Don’t apologize. It’s...nice.”

Mingyu’s eyes are warm and incredibly fond. He tangles their hands together again, this time over the sheet, in plain view. 

“Can I kiss you again?”

When Joshua closes his eyes he sees the vampire hovering above him, feels clawed fingers digging around his insides.

When Mingyu kisses him he doesn’t have to think about anything at all, not even about what kissing him means.

He nods, and Mingyu’s nose slides against his when their lips touch. 

  
  


♰♰♰

Joshua actually spends two full weeks in bed. He never sees Jeonghan. In fact, he’s pretty sure Jeonghan hasn’t come to see him at all since he woke up. Mingyu visits him at least every other day, usually after he’s done training with Jeonghan. They talk about what he’s doing and he isn’t surprised that while Mingyu’s training is harsher, it’s nothing like what Joshua has been doing. Mingyu always kisses him goodbye and by the third time Joshua almost craves it.

It’s a week into his bedrest when Mingyu leans in his doorway, lifts his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead, and Joshua feels time stop around him.

There is a perfect set of teeth marks above his nipple. Human, not vampire. Four perfectly spaced bruises on his hip. Fingertips.

It’s not like they’re in a relationship. Joshua isn’t upset that Mingyu is fucking someone.

No, it’s more that Joshua is sure Mingyu is fucking _Jeonghan_ , and his mind is scribbles on a white sheet of paper, tangled with emotions he can’t piece together.

Mingyu looks across the room and when he sees Joshua staring he looks almost embarrassed, glancing down at his body before meeting his eyes.

“It doesn’t mean anything with him, but you —”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything with me, either. I want —”

Mingyu’s pupils are blown, eyes dark with some hunger Joshua has never seen before, only felt deep down inside, hidden away.

“When you’re fully recovered. Anything you want.”

Mingyu keeps their eyes locked as he lowers his shirt back down. Joshua’s body is thrumming long after Mingyu leaves his bedroom.

If they were quiet about it before, they definitely aren’t after that. Mingyu’s moans echo through the cabin like they’re on a loudspeaker. It doesn’t help that Joshua focuses in on every hitched breath, every shuddered exhale that he’s sure is Jeonghan.

It’s too easy to wrap a hand around himself, to fuck into the tight ring of his fist. He jerks his hand in time with the headboard hitting the wall. 

Jeonghan is the same in this, too. Fast and rough, he takes whatever Mingyu is giving him. It’s impossible to imagine his face, if he’s struggling to keep quiet or moaning into Mingyu’s skin. The sound of the two of them together is dizzying, almost too much for Joshua’s still recovering body to handle.

He comes at the same time the bed stops moving, wet spot forming on his underwear. Each deep breath pulls at the stitches in his side. It’s fitting, really. Joshua can only associate Jeonghan with this kind of blurred pain pleasure. It all buzzes under his skin, simmers in his belly even as he hears Mingyu shut Jeonghan’s bedroom door and walk as softly as he can down the hallway. 

He wipes his hand on his pants and falls into a dreamless sleep.

As soon as his stitches come out he pulls Mingyu on top of him after training and kisses him hungrily, palms him through his shorts and moans into his mouth, weeks worth of desire coiling tight in his gut.

He takes what Mingyu gives him and is surprised to find that Mingyu will give him anything he wants. Jeonghan’s eyes burn against his skin after they have sex for the first time, like he knows, like he can see all the places Mingyu touched him.

After the first time, he starts to wonder if Mingyu is different with both of them. Is he more pliant with Jeonghan? Is he rougher? Does he like being with Jeonghan more?

Sometimes when Mingyu fucks him, he imagines it’s Jeonghan. Jeonghan’s calloused hands, Jeonghan’s hips pounding him into the mattress, Jeonghan leaning down to suck a mark into his skin, out of sight but still possessive.

Jeonghan would be rougher, Joshua thinks, would definitely sink his teeth in, bruise him right away. Mingyu is too gentle even when he’s being rough, even when Joshua begs him for it.

Joshua comes and bites the inside of his cheek, keeps words he can’t take back from bubbling up inside of him. Mingyu. Jeonghan. A mixture of both, maybe. It’s better if he doesn’t say anything at all.

  
  


♰♰♰

Joshua startles awake at the sound of glass breaking. The healed wound on his side is still soft and new and it twinges as he jumps to his feet. He grabs the knife he keeps under his mattress and makes his way toward the sound.

Moonlight filters through the windows. Everything is bathed in a cool glow, and when Joshua makes it to the kitchen the glass on the floor gleams. 

He’s rooted in place. Jeonghan is leaning heavily against the table. There is a huge slice across his thigh and blood pools like it’s welling up from the floor. Joshua drops the knife and lurches forward.

“God, are you — what —” Joshua starts. He can barely speak, has to squeeze his hands into fists to get them to stop shaking. 

Jeonghan is pale, his face shiny with sweat. Joshua helps him sit and props his injured leg on a chair.

First aid is, of course, a vital part of training. Joshua knows enough of what to do to keep Jeonghan alive, especially since calling that doctor is out of the question. Jeonghan wouldn’t let him, anyway.

“Take these off,” Joshua says absently, using his knife to cut Jeonghan’s jeans away from the wound. The sound of his belt clinking almost jars Joshua out of the contained place the adrenaline has put him. Jeonghan gets as far as unzipping his jeans before Joshua realizes he’s going to have to cut them off either way. He does this as methodically as he can, but it’s hard to not openly stare at what he’s never been allowed to see. Jeonghan’s thighs are smooth under his hands. 

Once the wound is visible he digs out their meager first aid kit. 

“What happened?” Joshua finally asks. He grabs the bottle of alcohol. Jeonghan’s hand grips his wrist lightning fast, eyes wide.

“What do you think happened?” he asks harshly. He lets go of his wrist and sighs. “I was hunting. Someone else tried to steal my kill. The vampire is dead and I made it here without passing out.”

“Who would do that?” Joshua asks under his breath. He pours alcohol over the wound and Jeonghan’s hands spasm at his sides. He doesn’t make a sound.

“Most hunters are at least honorable,” Jeonghan continues. His voice is strained. He must be in a lot of pain. “Some of them aren’t trained the same way we are. They’ll do anything to get a kill, even if they have to go through other humans to do it.”

“What do you do when you meet a hunter like that?”

Jeonghan finally meets his eyes. His scar is tinted red in the dark, the brown of his iris almost black.

“There are two endings to every fight, Joshua. Living or dying. I’m sure you already know what you have to do.”

Killing humans isn’t really what he signed up for, but the idea of Jeonghan dying at the hands of some bloodthirsty hunter...life or death. That makes it easier.

Joshua cleans the blood off of Jeonghan’s skin. It’s methodical, inside to outside, like he was taught. 

It’s quiet for a long time, the ticking of the clock and Jeonghan’s slow, concentrated breathing the only sounds.

“How is your wound?” Jeonghan asks after a while. He won’t meet Joshua’s eyes. He’s looking at some spot between the wound on his thigh and Joshua’s hands.

Something about the adrenaline has Joshua feeling bitter. He scoffs.

“It’s not like you care. You don’t have to make small talk with me.”

Jeonghan hisses as Joshua pours alcohol over the wound again. It splashes against the floor, tinged pink even in the moonlight. He might need stitches. Joshua has only just learned how to do them.

“You’re my student. You really think I don’t care?” Jeonghan asks.

He swipes across the wound and Jeonghan’s hand flies to his wrist again. He stares at the place where they touch.

“Shouldn’t you be asking where Mingyu is instead?” Joshua sneers. He can’t hide the mirth. He’s too tired. “You two are pretty close these days. Wouldn’t you rather your favorite patch you up?”

Jeonghan’s hand tightens around his wrist. When their eyes meet it’s electric, a current shooting between them.

“Mingyu is — it doesn’t mean anything. Stop acting like a child.” 

Joshua yanks out of his grip.

“You’ve never treated me like anything but a child. A bad one, at that.” Joshua looks away, his eyes blurring with anger. “You’re so cruel to me. You obviously hate that I’m here.” Joshua gets fresh gauze off the table and continues to clean the wound. “You treat Mingyu like he’s important to you. What else should I see when I look at the situation?”

Jeonghan leans back in the chair with a heavy sigh. It’s quiet for a long time, the insects outside filling the silence and Jeonghan’s uninjured leg bouncing up and down, like a nervous habit from a different life.

“Besides, aren’t you doing the same thing with him?” Jeonghan asks, and Joshua’s blood freezes in his veins. “Do you fuck him because you want to or do you fuck him because you have feelings for him? I hope for both of your sakes it’s the first one.”

Jeonghan isn’t supposed to know about that, but Joshua probably isn’t supposed to know about what Jeonghan has been doing with Mingyu, either. It’s all out now, the air charged with it.

He gets up and scrubs the blood off his hands in the sink.

“You’re a better hunter than Mingyu, Joshua. You’re stronger than he could ever hope to be,” Jeonghan says, his voice barely audible over the running water. Joshua finishes and turns back to him with wide eyes. “Haven’t you figured out why that is?”

“Mingyu is a clan hunter,” Joshua answers truthfully. “He’s lazy. He expects things to be easy.”

Jeonghan laughs so hard his leg shifts on the chair and starts bleeding again.

“That’s certainly one way to look at it, but it’s not what I mean.” Jeonghan’s eyes meet his and there it is again, electricity jolting his heart. “If I hated you then you wouldn’t be here.”

“You can’t kick me out. Master Jihoon would —”

Jeonghan holds up a hand, silencing him.

“Jihoon doesn’t hold that much power over me. If I wanted you gone then you’d be gone.” Jeonghan looks down at his leg, at the blood trickling down his skin again. Joshua wills himself to move and finally kneels back in front of him. “I can only teach you what Jihoon taught me.”

Joshua takes clean bandage from the table and wraps it around the gash. He has to put a hand under Jeonghan’s thigh to wrap it all the way around, tightening as he goes, and he can’t help the way it makes him shiver.

“Even if you hate me,” Jeonghan continues through gritted teeth, “I’ll make sure you’re the best hunter the world has ever seen. Nothing will ever be able to touch you.”

Joshua freezes and looks up. There’s something underneath the walls, tucked behind Jeonghan’s eyes just out of reach. 

He can’t even wrap his mind around it. Jeonghan’s brutal training is because he...cares? That can’t be right. Jeonghan can’t possibly _care_ about him.

There’s no time to think about it, thankfully. He gets off the floor and helps Jeonghan to his feet. Jeonghan wraps an arm around his waist, giving Joshua most of his weight as they make their way down the hall and into his bedroom, separating from him as soon as they make it inside. He sits heavily on the edge of his bed.

Joshua has to look at the floor. The air is so strange between them. It feels like any small thing could turn into something huge.

“You did well tonight,” Jeonghan says. 

Joshua looks up, straight into Jeonghan’s wide brown eyes. He shakes his head.

“It’s nothing. You don’t need to —” Joshua starts, but Jeonghan holds up a hand.

“Thank you.”

Joshua falls silent. It’s the first time, ever, that Jeonghan has thanked him for anything. The words ripple through him, light up each nerve until he’s tingling all over.

“I — um — gotta clean up,” Joshua stutters out, turns on his heel and walks to the kitchen without a single glance back.

The kitchen is as messy as he imagined it would be. Gauze, blood and glass litter the floor. Joshua stares at it for a long time. His heart is still racing. It’s a visceral kind of reminder, that as much as Jeonghan is his senior, he is also very much a human. 

He stares down at his hands and, right there, a stripe of blood on the edge of his thumb. Jeonghan’s blood.

Vampires kill indiscriminately for it. Hunters spill their own to protect. Jeonghan’s blood is red, bright and still wet on his hand. He didn’t even notice when it had gotten on him. Some time between helping Jeonghan to bed and ending up here.

Blood. 

Sometimes it feels like that’s all there is between them. Spilling vampire blood. Spilling Joshua’s blood. 

Under the cold light of the moon, body still lit up from the easy praise of Jeonghan’s words, he brings his hand to his mouth and shudders as he licks it clean.

♰♰♰

Training does not get any easier while Jeonghan recovers. If anything, it’s worse. Joshua spends an entire night tied to a tree at the edge of the forest, blindfolded. The wind howls and the grass rustles at his feet and he feels eyes on him everywhere, animals and monsters and ancient beings, whatever secrets the forest is hiding. 

He imagines Jeonghan propped against a tree in front of him, weight on his uninjured leg, watching him intensely. The ropes dig into his skin just enough to be uncomfortable and his face burns. Everything Jeonghan does has a purpose behind it, a lesson he’s supposed to apply to his life as a vampire hunter. He’s not sure what the lesson is, this time. No vampire will blindfold him and tie him up, not without hurting him first. 

Joshua’s blood turns to ice when he hears the crunch of dry leaves. His heart hammers as the sound comes closer. He wills himself to calm down, but it’s a struggle. He’s defenseles. The sound stops right in front of him. Now there really is a person watching him, and he has no idea who it is. 

For a moment he thinks it might be Mingyu, defying Jeonghan just to keep him company. The comfort is short lived and the footsteps come closer. 

In the haze of adrenaline Joshua’s mind supplies him lines from novels, anything to ease the growing hysteria.

He senses the hand coming toward him before he feels it, gentle fingers on his cheek, tracing just beneath the blindfold. 

_I would know him blind._

Joshua lets out a shaky breath. The fingers trace lower, against the curve of his jaw, cup his chin. A thumb presses against his lips. He feels dizzy with it. The fear in the air completely gone, replaced instead by the man in front of him and the want simmering under his skin.

_I would know him in death, at the end of the world._

The hand retreats, and really, the knee to his stomach is a welcomed, familiar thing.

♰♰♰

It’s a few weeks later when Jeonghan cuts open a letter in a black envelope. It’s blank on the front, no indication of who might have sent it except the red wax seal. Joshua doesn’t need to see it up close to know what it is. A wolf with a stake in its mouth. Jihoon.

“An assignment. Jihoon found a nest with eight vampires,” Jeonghan says, eyes never leaving the letter. “We’re leaving tonight.”

Jeonghan’s eyes are still on the letter as he walks down the hall and into his bedroom. Joshua is quick to follow, if only because he’s got more questions than answers.

“What about Mingyu?” he asks as Jeonghan checks over his knives. He opens a drawer, tosses some stakes on the bed and finally looks up with a smug kind of smirk.

“Your little plaything has his own assignment. The two of us can handle this.”

The words cling to him like spider webs. It makes him angry, but more than that, it makes him feel like he’s done something wrong.

“I think he’s more your plaything than mine,” Joshua mutters under his breath.

“What was that?” Jeonghan asks, narrowing his eyes. He reaches out and grips his wrist, too fast to react. “Care to repeat what you just said a little louder?”

Joshua’s heart leaps into his throat. He has to swallow twice before he can speak.

“I said I think he’s more your plaything than mine.” Joshua tugs at his wrist but Jeonghan doesn’t even loosen his grip. “I don’t play with him. Just because I don’t want a relationship doesn’t mean it’s a game for me.”

Something flashes across Jeonghan’s face and Joshua can’t stop the shiver that creeps up his spine. Jeonghan looks at him the way the vampire that bit him did, like he’s ready to eat him alive, to drain him until there’s nothing left.

He gives Joshua a sickly sweet smile.

“That’s why you got so hurt, isn’t it? Our Mingyu is _special_ to you.” Jeonghan moves closer to him and Joshua takes a step back, then another, until Jeonghan’s got him against the wall. “Did you let him fuck you before or after you almost died?”

Shame and anger well up inside of him and he turns his head to the side, eyes on the floor. 

“He’s so _easy_ ,” Jeonghan continues, “If you praise him he’ll do anything you want.”

He turns to meet Jeonghan’s eyes and realizes he’s caged in, hands on each side of his head. He leans in and they’re close enough to brush noses, kissing close. Joshua has to bite back a whine.

“Do you like bossing him around? Does telling him what to do get you off?”

“ _Enough_ ,” Joshua shouts, pushing Jeonghan away just enough for him to step away from the wall. “Stop talking about it. You don’t know anything.”

Jeonghan walks back to the bed, strapping his holsters on like nothing happened, and Joshua walks straight to his bedroom, digs the heels of his hand into his eyes and breathes.

He’s never wanted anyone more in his entire life.

  
  


♰♰♰

There are two men standing guard at the front door. The house is an old, run down looking two story outside of the city limits. Jeonghan’s footsteps make no noise next to him, his eyes trained to the door. Their only light is from the moon overhead.

Joshua has only gone on two real hunts with Jeonghan. Watching him is still just as unbelievable as the first time. Every movement is precise, his body expertly controlled, even when all he's doing is walking. They make it to a row of hedges and take cover. Jeonghan leans out just enough to see. The guards make no indication that they’ve seen them. 

Jeonghan takes a silver knife in each hand, stands up and flings them, one after the other. They fly through the air, and just as the guards notice his presence the knives sink into the sides of their necks. They can’t even scream as they crumple to the ground.

Jeonghan yanks Joshua up by the arm. 

“We have to move, now.”

Joshua follows behind. Jeonghan sprints to the front door, passes a stake to Joshua and the two make quick work of the guards, nothing but ash in their wake. Jeonghan takes a breath and kicks the door open.

It’s immediate chaos. Joshua loses himself to it. Everything narrows down to surviving. Muscle memory puts weapons in his hands, training keeps him upright when a vampire grips his neck and flings him into the wall. His head bounces off and he sees stars, shakes them away as fast as he can and brings a stake up, pushes it into the vampire’s chest.

His fangs are inches from Joshua’s neck. He turns to ash before his grip even loosens on Joshua’s neck. 

He finds his next target in the form of a vampire digging claws into Jeonghan’s arm, sinking through his flesh like butter.

Jeonghan doesn’t make a sound, just grits his teeth and kicks the vampire’s knee. It makes a sickening crack. The vampire’s legs buckle but his fingers remain in Jeonghan’s skin. The vampire snarls and lunges and Joshua moves as fast as his legs can carry him, plunging a stake into the vampire’s back until it’s turned to ash between them. 

Jeonghan has already gotten rid of two. This one makes six.

Ash clogs the wound left in Jeonghan’s arm, but neither of them have time to worry about it. The commotion upstairs sounds a lot like vampires trying to flee. Joshua pulls two knives from his calf holster and passes one to Jeonghan wordlessly. 

They have to take the stairs single file. Jeonghan goes first, Joshua right behind. He makes it clear of the hallway and as Joshua moves to follow claws rip across his chest.

It hurts, but he doesn’t scream. It’s been trained out of him.

Jeonghan turns to him with wide eyes. The vampire wrenches one of his arms behind his back, claws at his throat, pressing so hard that they sink in, five little holes in their wake. Joshua’s head is at chest level with the vampire, and thankfully he’s trained for this, too, the vampire just doesn’t know it. Jeonghan hurls a knife, Joshua dodges a centimeter to the left and it’s a perfect bullseye, right in the chest. The vampire screams. Joshua falls to his knees and plunges a stake in the hole left behind by the knife. 

One more. 

Glass breaks and for a moment Joshua is flung back in time, his side twinging with phantom pain. Jeonghan rushes down the hall and he shakes himself out of it, feet carrying him forward. A vampire is running full speed across the lawn towards the forest. Jeonghan sighs and pulls a gun out of a holster hidden at the base of his spine.

“You’ve had a gun the _whole time_?” Joshua croaks out. Jeonghan sights down the barrel.

He takes a breath, pulls the trigger on the exhale, and the vampire drops to the ground. Jeonghan watches the smoke from the barrel curl toward the sky.

“For emergencies,” he says softly. “It was going to get away.”

They make their way downstairs and back outside. The vampire Jeonghan shot isn’t dead. Instead, she’s crawling toward the forest as fast as she can, her torso pouring blood.

Jeonghan pulls a stake out of a hostler on his forearm and plunges it into her back.

♰♰♰

The silence is deafening. The drive back home is filled with nothing but the low murmuring of the radio and Joshua’s thundering heartbeat. The adrenaline is starting to wear off and his chest is burning, pulsing with pain in time with his heart.

Jeonghan’s hands are shaking on the wheel. It’s amazing he hasn’t hit Joshua yet, with as badly as their mission went. Both of them ended up hurt and it’s all because Joshua isn’t as good at this as Jeonghan expects him to be, as he expects _himself_ to be.

They make it inside the cabin and Joshua can’t take it anymore. He falls to his knees on the rough wood in the entryway. Jeonghan turns back to look at him, surprise all over his face.

“You’re injured and it’s all my fault,” he says. He doesn’t look up even when Jeonghan’s feet turn toward him. “I’ll accept your punishment.”

Jeonghan falls to his knees in front of him. It’s entirely unexpected. 

The backhand across his face, the hard, angry eyes, that’s a bit more familiar. When he looks up Jeonghan’s eyes are pitch black.

“This isn’t your fault,” Jeonghan says. He’s breathing hard. “I was distracted. I shouldn’t have been.”

Joshua shakes his head. “I should have reacted faster. I held you back. I’m not —”

Jeonghan slaps him again. There’s blood at the corner of his mouth. He sticks his tongue there, licks a bit of the blood away and the air goes electric as Jeonghan’s eyes follow the movement.

“Stop,” Jeonghan says, voice pitched low. He grips Joshua’s chin, bruising. “You really don’t understand anything at all.”

He pulls Joshua forward and crashes their lips together. 

The slashes across his chest burn. Pain and pleasure. A moan slips out of his mouth before he has time to stop it and he grips the front of Jeonghan’s shirt desperately. Jeonghan doesn’t let up, kisses him so hard he can feel blood trickling down from the split Jeonghan put there. He swipes his tongue across Joshua’s bottom lip and when he opens up for him all he tastes is his own blood. 

Jeonghan’s hands move to his hips and his entire body lights up. He sits back and pulls Joshua forward into his lap and, really, those hands could lead him straight into hell and he would follow. His chest is aching, inside and out, desperate for what he never really thought he could have.

When they break apart Jeonghan smooths his hands down his arms.

“Do you get it now? Does it make a little more sense?” he pants. 

It does and it doesn’t. It must show on Joshua’s face because Jeonghan rolls his eyes and huffs impatiently.

“I’ll explain later. Just...come here.”

Joshua can’t think of anything he’d rather do. His hands move to the back of Jeonghan’s neck and he kisses him, hot and wet, pours six months' worth of desire into it. The hands on his hips tighten. It’s near bruising, exactly the way he always imagined it would be. He can’t stop shaking.

He tugs at Jeonghan’s shirt, desperate for skin on skin contact. Jeonghan breaks the kiss and smirks, tugs it over his head without paying the wound on his arm any mind. It’s bleeding again, trickling down his arm in thick lines. Joshua reaches out and touches the skin just above the claw marks.

Jeonghan’s hands are impossibly tighter on his hips.

“Yours is a lot worse than mine,” he says. 

His hands slip under Joshua’s shirt and he starts to pull it up. The wounds, when fully exposed, stretch from collarbone to just under his ribs. They aren’t as deep as Jeonghan’s, but blood has still made a mess of his skin. 

Jeonghan tosses his shirt to the floor. There is a dark, hungry look in his eyes. Joshua’s heart beats frantically in his chest.

Jeonghan trails a finger through the blood, leaving a line of pale skin behind. Joshua shivers. 

“No one is allowed to hurt you like this.”

Joshua gives him a wry smile. “Except you, right?”

Jeonghan blinks, licks the blood off his finger and arousal pools, fire in Joshua’s veins. He pulls their bodies flush together, bare skin meeting for the first time, and licks the taste of blood out of Jeonghan’s mouth until there’s nothing left. 

Jeonghan can’t stop running his hands over Joshua’s bare torso, and at first he’s careful, gentle but purposeful touches. The places where they touch burn, Joshua’s heart thudding so hard against his ribs he knows Jeonghan can feel it.

When they break apart, Joshua guides Jeonghan’s hand to the cuts on his chest, presses his fingers over each one, slides them across and he shudders, closes his eyes at the feeling. When he opens his eyes, Jeonghan is looking at him like he’s done something unbelievable, like everything before this moment was just a game and this, _this_ has tipped everything over the edge.

For Joshua, it’s the feeling of Jeonghan, hard against the back of his thigh, that puts him over the edge. He rocks his hips down and a desperate, punched out sound escapes him.

“ _Please_ —” Joshua breathes it, can’t voice the need any louder even as it stares them both in the face.

Jeonghan’s hand is still against his chest. He moves both to his waist, smears blood across his abdomen. He presses Joshua down and rocks up into him, bottom lip trapped between his teeth. It’s more beautiful than Joshua could have ever imagined. Jeonghan in pleasure. That’s what the Joshua in the Bible must have seen. 

Jeonghan doesn’t answer him with words. He slots their lips together, grips Joshua’s hips until he hisses, grinds his body down on his cock. It’s maddening. Joshua moans into his mouth, squeezes Jeonghan’s body between his thighs, desperate.

He adjusts Joshua on his lap, works his jeans open one handed. Joshua breaks the kiss and rests his head on Jeonghan’s shoulder. From here he can look down at Jeonghan’s bare upper body. He’s got a lot of scars, too. Joshua wants to map each one with his mouth. Desire eats at him like the sweetest poison.

“You, too,” Joshua murmurs. Jeonghan palms him over his underwear and he shivers, pleasure electric.

Jeonghan strokes him once before moving back, slipping out from under him. They are both kneeling on the floor again. Jeonghan unbuttons his jeans and Joshua watches each movement like he’s in a trance. Jeonghan is impossibly beautiful, skin tinted pink from Joshua’s blood. His cock twitches in anticipation.

He gets his pants down his thighs, no underwear, Joshua shouldn’t be shocked but he is, something twinging in his belly. He pulls Jeonghan in until they’re touching from thigh to chest. He bucks forward, still clothed erection seeking whatever he can get.

Jeonghan strokes himself and Joshua’s mouth is dry. He looks down and then back up, and it’s then that Joshua realizes Jeonghan’s hand is still slick from his blood, from tracing down the marks on his chest earlier. His cock makes a slick sound against his palm and Joshua’s entire body is hot from it.

He slides his own pants down to his thighs before slamming their lips together. The head of Jeonghan’s cock presses into his thigh and he makes a desperate, high sound in his throat, bucking forward. 

“Do you want me to —” Jeonghan starts, panting against his mouth, but Joshua cuts him off before he can finish.

“Anything, anything you want. Just, please —”

Jeonghan angles his body and takes them both in his hand.

Joshua keens, the feeling of Jeonghan’s cock against his, trapped in the tight space of Jeonghan’s fist is immediately too much. The blood on his hand is still wet, the slide smooth. Something sinister blooms in his chest, like a flower that only opens at night. It mixes with the burning ache of the cuts on his chest. He throws his head back and Jeonghan attaches his mouth to his neck, sucks a dark mark under his jaw.

“What do you want?” Jeonghan asks, low and gravely against his skin. “How can I make you feel good? Tell me.”

Jeonghan’s hand twists around the heads of their cocks and he moans. 

“I like it,” Joshua starts, breath hitching, “like this is good. You can make it hurt. I don’t mind.”

Jeonghan grins against his skin and goosebumps work their way up his spine.

“You think I don’t know? You think I can’t tell what being on the post does to you?” Jeonghan works his hand faster, thrusting against him, and Joshua follows the rhythm. “Is it any pain? No, I don’t think so.”

Joshua’s head falls against Jeonghan’s shoulder weakly, body lost to pleasure.

“Tell me,” Jeonghan says. “I want to hear you say it.”

Jeonghan’s other hand reaches between them, presses against the top of his wound. Both of them lose rhythm, Joshua gasping into Jeonghan’s skin.

“Just —” he takes a breath. “Just you. Only you.”

Jeonghan pulls him up by the hair and kisses him, open mouthed and bruising. His hand works faster over them as his tongue curls into his mouth.

It’s the mess of it, blood and sweat, pain and pleasure, that puts Joshua right on the edge.

“I’m — close... I —” Joshua gasps between kisses. Jeonghan kisses his cheek, presses their bodies so tightly together the cuts on his chest burn from the sweat on his skin, an aching kind of pleasure. The scar over his eye changes his iris into something almost inhuman, impossibly dark.

“Then come.”

Three strokes of Jeonghan’s hand and he comes, bites his lip to keep the noise in as he coats Jeonghan’s skin. Jeonghan doesn’t slow the pace of his hand, strokes them both faster as he chases his own release. Joshua’s body trembles, aftershocks and overstimulation, pleasure blurring back into pain. It’s exactly what he wants.

Jeonghan comes not long after, sinks his teeth into Joshua’s shoulder as he works himself through it, come hot on Joshua’s abdomen. He leaves his hand lax around them both when he stills. Joshua runs his hands up and down his sides, touches him while he still can. Jeonghan’s body is hot under his hands, heart hammering against his fingers as he comes down.

Jeonghan pulls back too soon, wiping his hands on his pants as he slips them back on. Joshua does the same, heat creeping up his cheeks. 

“What now?” Joshua asks, breathless. Between them is a mess of blood and come. It’s probably the way Jeonghan will leave things. He will get up and bandage his arm and leave Joshua to do the same, and tomorrow they will wake up and pretend that this was all a dream.

Jeonghan’s words ring in his ears, so loud he can feel the whip against his back. _To become a hunter is to sacrifice everything._

Jeonghan looks him over from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet before moving back up, hovering at his chest for a long time. 

It takes him a few minutes to speak, When he opens his mouth their eyes meet, something just a little warmer, a spark where there was once ashes.

“Let’s get you patched up,” Jeonghan says, taking Joshua’s hand in his own. He leads them both to his bedroom, and Joshua, really, can’t do anything but follow.

♰♰♰

Apparently, _patched up_ includes a shower, with Jeonghan running his hands over every inch of Joshua’s skin, mapping every scar and bruise, kissing the imprints of his teeth left in his shoulder. He cleans the cuts on Joshua’s chest with the gentleness most people save for tiny kittens or flower petals. Joshua still isn’t used to it. Each touch makes him shiver.

Later, clean and bandaged, Jeonghan pulls him into bed. He doesn’t cuddle him which is a strange kind of relief. It would be too much, and maybe Jeonghan knows that. 

He’s awake for a long time, until Jeonghan’s breathing goes deep and even. Joshua sighs. It still feels like a dream. He turns over and Jeonghan turns his face toward him, head pillowed on his arms. 

“I thought you were asleep,” Joshua says softly. Cicadas drone softly outside. It’s comfortable here, in Jeonghan’s bed, just big enough for both of them.

“I won’t be able to go to sleep until you do,” Jeonghan says. It’s a little too dim for Joshua to make out the expression on his face. 

“What? Do you always wait until everyone else is asleep?” The silence is its own answer. Joshua turns on his side and props his head up on his hand. “Why?”

“Training,” Jeonghan answers simply. “Jihoon trained me that way. I don’t think it’s a necessary thing, which is why it’s not a part of what I’m teaching you.”

“But the mixed signals are?” Joshua asks, the words acrid in his mouth.

Jeonghan breathes in and out for a while, and Joshua worries that he’s messed up whatever delicate thing is happening between them.

“Jihoon has always told me that it’s better to live this life alone, and for a long time I believed him.” Jeonghan sighs and Joshua fights the desire to reach out and touch his bare skin. “And then you walked in to my house and all I’ve been able to think about since you got here is being with you.”

Joshua laughs bitterly. 

“So you show me how much you want to be with me by whipping me until I pass out?”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes. It’s kind of refreshing in a way, that things aren’t completely different between them.

“If I can make you stronger then you’ll be safe. If I keep you from knowing how I feel...that keeps you safe, too.” Jeonghan reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. “Feelings get in the way out there. You’ve learned this lesson first hand. I won’t allow anything bad to happen to you, even if it means training you to not feel anything anymore.”

“Even if it means not being with me?”

The words sound small and hollow. Joshua wonders if this whole thing is going to end right now. The beginning and the end in the span of a few hours. His chest is too tight.

Jeonghan takes his hand off Joshua’s shoulder and lets out a very dramatic sounding sigh.

“Do you see how hard you make things for me? Listen to what I say. All of it.” Jeonghan presses Joshua onto his back and hovers over him. The air between them is burning.

“I used to think that being alone was better. I don’t think that anymore. I can’t go back to how things were.” Jeonghan tucks a strand of blonde hair behind his ear. “I want to keep teaching you, but I want to be able to take you to bed with me, and kiss you when you’ve done a good job. I want it so much it scares the shit out of me.”

It’s everything Joshua could possibly want, hand delivered by the man he wants more than anyone.

He can’t disappoint him. It’s not like he wants to, anyway.

“You’re still going to whip me, aren’t you?” Joshua asks, voice going low as he pulls Jeonghan down, nosing his neck.

Jeonghan hums and Joshua smiles against his skin.

  
  


♰♰♰

Joshua wakes up to a throbbing sting across his whole chest and Jeonghan’s leg across his hips. It’s the only place they touch, but Jeonghan is surprisingly heavy in sleep. Joshua can’t move without waking him up.

So he lays there, watches the shadows of the leaves on the bedroom wall. He thinks about how Jeonghan’s lips feel on his. He thinks about how Jeonghan never bandaged his own wound, too concerned with taking care of him. Jeonghan’s arm is thrown carelessly across the pillow. The wound is delicately scabbed over, clean enough, and he lets out a relieved breath.

His eyes linger on Jeonghan’s face, the slope of his nose, the sharp line of his jaw. Even if he starts at the beginning, at the first time Jeonghan put a wooden stake in his hand and told him to drive it into the ground, he can’t wrap his mind around how he ended up here.

It would make more sense if it was just sex, but it doesn’t seem that way. It’s because Jeonghan has been hiding it, emotions tucked inside a wall so thick vampires can’t even crack it. How does Joshua have any hope at all of seeing the things Jeonghan has hidden away? 

Joshua hasn’t allowed himself to want Jeonghan often. There is longing and then there is masochism, and while Jeonghan hurting him has grown into some kind of _thing_ over time, emotional pain isn’t the same. He’s wanted Jeonghan in the inky sky before dawn, in the cold morning air, in the nights he’s spent on the post.

He just doesn’t know exactly what they’re doing. That’s the problem. Actions and words are very different. Joshua shifts his weight and Jeonghan wakes up with a gasp, propped up on his elbows like he’s ready to jump out of bed at the first sign of danger. Their eyes meet. Jeonghan registers him and relaxes in stages.

Eventually he’s sprawled back on the bed, head pillowed on his uninjured arm. His leg is still on his hips.

“You’re still here,” Jeonghan breathes, barely audible. 

Joshua presses up into Jeonghan’s leg. “It’s not like I could have gone anywhere. You’re a heavy sleeper. Literally.”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes and slides his leg off but keeps their bodies connected. It’s warm where they touch.

“If you think one of my legs is heavy then I’ve been slacking off on your training.”

Joshua huffs and Jeonghan gives him an almost mischievous smile. It softens him into someone younger, less jaded by the world they live in. He practically pounces, hovers over Joshua, careful of his chest, but presses his full weight against his hips. Joshua bucks up into him, tries to prove himself but ends up with Jeonghan’s thigh pressed into his morning wood instead.

Jeonghan’s eyes search his for only a moment before he leans down and kisses him. Joshua hums, opens up for him and curls their tongues together. It’s incredibly domestic, lazy with sleep and Joshua’s body burns with it.

When they break apart Jeonghan turns away and yawns. 

“Knifework today,” Jeonghan says when he turns back to face him. 

Joshua blinks.

“Your arm,” he says dumbly. Jeonghan frowns.

“Your chest.”

Joshua frowns back at him. Time stretches between them, until Joshua finally sighs.

“Fine. At least bandage it before we go.”

Jeonghan nods, gives him one final kiss and stretches as his feet hit the floor. His back is a graceful arch and Joshua’s stomach flips. He waits for Joshua to get out of bed before he sheds his sweatpants and loose shirt. He tries not to stare, opting to walk down the hall to his bedroom to do the same. Eventually, they’ll have to talk about it, what exactly the two of them are doing, what they want, but for now Joshua is content to exist in the present.

Jeonghan is, of course, merciless in the field. Joshua misses a target and Jeonghan throws a knife so close to his face he can feel it slice the air next to his cheek.

“I won’t miss next time. You better not, either,” he says, mouth a firm line.

Joshua shivers and nods, picks up the knife at his feet and turns back to the target.

Bullseye.

Later, Joshua takes off his shoes, sweat rolling down his back, body sore and chest burning, and Jeonghan presses him against the door and kisses him, slow and thorough.

“You did well today,” he says when they break apart. Joshua’s heart thumps against his ribcage. His entire body is thrumming. He’s barely used to being praised, much less kissed.

Jeonghan walks down the hall and Joshua doesn’t move until he hears the shower start.

Maybe this is what he wanted, but it seems to be much worse for his health. Underneath the looming title of teacher, Jeonghan is a menace.

Joshua washes the day’s training off his skin, separate shower, and spends the rest of the afternoon reading on the couch, a barely appropriate space between Jeonghan’s feet and his legs.

It’s at night when things are the most noticeably different. Darkness brings a hole in Jeonghan’s perfectly crafted defenses, just big enough for Joshua to slip inside. 

It’s almost like they’re meeting in another life, a reality where they aren’t hunting monsters and collecting scars. Jeonghan tells Joshua about his parents’ death, about Jihoon finding him, training him. 

About how much he wanted Jihoon, until it was trained out of him.

“He never — not after his fiance.” Jeonghan looks down at the sheet. “Jihoon is the one who taught me that there’s no room for attachment in this life. It took me a long time to accept that I would only ever be his student, that he would never see me as anything else.”

Joshua feels like he’s looking in a mirror. He imagines Jeonghan, gangly teenage limbs and broken heart and a yearning that he can’t put words to. Of course he would want Jihoon. Of course he would fall for him. 

Minghao was right. Jeonghan isn’t Jihoon. And maybe it is this exact experience that brought Joshua into his bed like this.

He kisses Jeonghan and hopes that it helps, even for just a second.

♰♰♰

Mingyu comes back the next day. He walks in and Joshua is drinking tea at the kitchen table and it’s like Mingyu knows, somehow. Like Joshua’s atoms were scattered and put back together when Jeonghan kissed him, like there’s some permanent, irreversible change in him. 

He doesn’t come out and say anything. It’s not like Joshua really owes him an explanation, either. What they’ve been doing is simple, slipping into each other’s beds to ease the solitude of hunter life. It’s been no strings since the beginning, but now all the strings are tangled together.

Jeonghan doesn’t try to hide it from Mingyu, not that Joshua expected him to. He presses Joshua’s back into a tree, knife at his throat. Joshua doesn’t mean to let the desperate, needy sound slip past his lips, but Jeonghan’s eyes go dark, and he keeps the knife pressed against his skin as he kisses him. Mingyu being on the field fades away into the background and all Joshua can do is kiss Jeonghan back, shudder when the knife presses a little too tightly to his neck, just barely slicing into him.

Eventually Jeonghan steps away and Joshua’s eyes find Mingyu like he can’t help it. Something strange hangs between them. Mingyu isn’t jealous, not exactly sad. There’s almost a heat there, something that’s been simmering a long time behind his eyes.

It’s a look that Joshua almost recognizes, like looking into the mirror.

A few more days pass by before Joshua has the nerve to talk about it. He’s making coffee and Jeonghan’s arms wrap around his waist, the tip of his nose pressed into the back of his neck. It’s nice. Joshua rations these moments, hides them away for the upgraded sessions on the post where Jeonghan starts talking about vampires drinking him dry while Joshua is forced to watch. He thinks Joshua will break. He won’t. He refuses to.

He turns around in Jeonghan’s hold. They’re almost the same height, and it’s nice to look straight across into his eyes.

“I think we should talk about Mingyu,” Joshua says.

Jeonghan snorts. “Straight to the point, I see.” He moves his hands to Joshua’s hips, rubs them over his skin absently. “Okay. So talk.”

Joshua sighs. They’ve barely discussed their own relationship, but maybe it’s all connected. Maybe this will help the two of them, too.

“We were both sleeping with him, and now we’re —” Joshua gestures between their bodies. “— whatever we’re doing.”

Jeonghan gives him an amused smirk. “We definitely are doing _something_.”

Joshua bites back the urge to roll his eyes. “So what are we going to do now?”

Jeonghan stares at him for a long time without speaking. The eye contact is intense, and Joshua has to look down a few times before Jeonghan finally speaks.

“Do you want to keep sleeping with him? He’s a pretty good lay.”

Joshua’s face goes hot. “What kind of question is that? _Do you_?”

Jeonghan grins, nothing but mischief. 

“I wouldn’t say no to sleeping with him, or with both of you, really.”

He feels a little silly for not thinking about it that way. It doesn’t have to be one or the other if they don’t want it to be. Whatever they’re doing, they can keep doing it. All three of them.

“Like...together? At the same time?” Joshua asks, if only to hear Jeonghan say it out loud. 

Jeonghan’s hands are motionless on his hips. He looks down, bites his lip, looks back up into Joshua’s eyes.

“I had a friend once, a lifetime ago, who was in love with his best friend. Everything was fine, until one day he got captured. His lover came looking for him, and he got taken too.” Jeonghan looks at the wall just next to Joshua’s head, seeing but somewhere far away. “And when it came down to who would live, and who would die, my friend held on but his lover cracked. They only survived because of me, but it’s a wound that never really healed.”

Joshua thinks back, and it’s a lightbulb moment, the pieces clicking together right away.

“The doctor. This is about him, right?”

Jeonghan doesn’t confirm or deny, but Joshua is sure he’s right.

“And now the only way they can handle all the shit between them is with a third person.” Jeonghan sighs. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s dangerous to have one person be your everything. Hunters aren’t made for that.”

Joshua isn’t really surprised by it. The fact that Jeonghan is even holding on to him is more than he ever dared to hope for.

“Did you think I expected you to tell me you’re in love with me?” Joshua asks, lips curling into a smirk. Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “I don’t care about what we are as long as I can keep doing this. I didn’t really consider that Mingyu could be a part of it, too. That’s all.”

Jeonghan’s hands settle on the small of his back. It’s comfortable, it’s intimate, but it’s not love, at least not in the way his parents were in love.

“I think that’s who you are, deep down. A good man, a man who wants to live the white picket fence life and settle down and have a family.” There’s something almost sad in Jeonghan’s eyes. “I don’t think it will ever go away, but you wouldn’t really be you if it did.”

Jeonghan presses a kiss to his forehead, tender and soft and full of something that, in another life, could probably turn into love. He steps away from Joshua and takes a seat at the table.

“Hold onto whatever humanity you can, Joshua. Once it’s gone, it’s very hard to get back.” Joshua joins him on the opposite side of the table and takes a sip of his coffee, cool enough from how long they spent talking. Jeonghan smirks. “You can hold onto me, and Mingyu, too, if you want. As long as you understand what I’ve taught you.”

To be a hunter is to sacrifice everything. Joshua knows. He has no doubt in his mind that Jeonghan would save himself without a thought for either of his students. It doesn’t bother him, except maybe in the small secret place Jeonghan was talking about.

It’s then that Mingyu pads into the kitchen. He’s in loose sweats, shirtless, hair ruffled from sleep. Mingyu is unbelievably sexy. There’s really no other way to put it. Jeonghan’s eyes are dark when Mingyu joins them, huddled over the coffee Joshua set out for him like it’s his life line.

“What do we have today?” Mingyu mumbles sleepily, “Training? Mission? Both?”

Jeonghan snorts. “When have I ever given my wonderful students training and a mission on the same day?”

Mingyu’s head whips up, and suddenly he’s fully awake, looking at Jeonghan with raised eyebrows.

“Are you —” Mingyu licks his lips before he tries again. “Are you okay?”

Jeonghan looks at Joshua, barely concealed grin on his face. Mingyu looks to Joshua too, all questions. He probably thinks they’re in for it, that Jeonghan has finally snapped and something terrible is going to happen to them as a result.

Joshua sighs. Later, when it’s all sorted out, they can tease Mingyu. They have to talk, otherwise it’s cruel in a way that makes Joshua’s heart squeeze.

“You know that Jeonghan and I are, um...”

Mingyu nods, expression unreadable.

“So I guess I’m asking if you’re okay.”

Mingyu gives him a small smile, gentle, the one he saves for when it’s just the two of them.

“Of course I’m okay. I know it’s what you’ve wanted for a long time, even if you never said it. I’m happy, really.” Mingyu glances at Jeonghan before moving his eyes to the coffee in front of him. “I can go back home, if you’re too uncomfortable to train me. I don’t want to get in the way.”

Jeonghan snorts and Joshua frowns at him. Mingyu looks up, confusion all over his face.

“Mingyu, I’m not kicking you out, and you certainly aren’t in the way. You’re my student and I plan to train you until you’re worthy of the title.” He rests his chin on his hand, amused smirk playing at his lips. “What Joshua is trying to say more delicately than I will is that you don’t have to stop sleeping with either of us. Separately, or together, unless you want to.”

Joshua’s face is so hot he has to hide his eyes behind his hand. He hears Mingyu’s mug lift from the table then back down. It feels like an eternity before Joshua has the nerve to look up. Mingyu’s looking between the two of them, careful, wary, like he’s hunting. It’s a look Joshua hasn’t seen on him very often. 

“Really? So it’s the same, just all of us, now?” Mingyu asks, and it sounds so simple when he says it. 

Jeonghan nods, and that’s enough for Mingyu, but when he turns to Joshua his eyebrows furrow.

“I want you to say it. That this is what you want,” he says.

Joshua looks at Mingyu, really looks at him. He thinks about the times Mingyu was inside of him and he pretended it was Jeonghan, instead. He thinks about the way Mingyu’s lips feel on his, warm and comforting. How Mingyu risked his life for him, how out of the three of them his heart is probably the biggest, the easiest to break but somehow he’s still here, and maybe this is the true difference between them. Maybe Mingyu’s strength is in his ability to break and rebuild, to hand over his heart, raw and bleeding, no matter how many times he’s been hurt.

Maybe Jeonghan is right. It’s dangerous to let one person be your everything, but the three of them could split it, divide everything up and share it. Jeonghan says it’s a permanent part of him, the white picket fence, but Joshua doesn’t think he really needs it if he can have this instead. Loving one person forever has sort of been beaten out of him, anyway.

“It is. What I want,” Joshua says. It comes out soft but Mingyu still nods. 

He drains the rest of his coffee and stands up, stretches his body in a way that Joshua knows is on purpose. Like now that he knows he’s allowed, he’s taking full advantage of the situation. He didn’t before, unless they were alone, but Joshua and Jeonghan share a look that tells him Mingyu is the same with both of them, at least when it comes to this.

“PT, to answer your question. I want to see how long the both of you can run before you hit the ground,” Jeonghan says, looking up at Mingyu with a wicked grin. “Winner gets something a little different, this time.” 

And so, Joshua leaves Mingyu face down in the dirt after five miles, and his prize is watching Mingyu suck Jeonghan off in the kitchen. After, he licks the taste out of Mingyu’s mouth and Jeonghan presses a line of kisses up his spine and Joshua feels like things are finally starting to fit together.

They fall into Jeonghan’s bed and it’s a blur, Mingyu fucking into him while Jeonghan pins his wrists against the sheets. He tells Mingyu exactly what to do and Joshua gives himself over to the hazy pleasure of it, of Jeonghan’s half growled commands and Mingyu’s eagerness to follow them. When he comes it’s like a dam bursts, like every feeling he’s had since he walked into Jeonghan’s cabin the first time pours out of him, white noise in his ears and static behind his eyes. 

They sleep there, too, in Jeonghan’s barely two person sized bed. Mingyu is in the middle, Joshua’s face against his chest and Jeonghan’s chin hooked over his shoulder. He reaches across Mingyu’s body and grips Joshua’s hip. When their eyes meet, it’s not a spark, but a wildfire. 

“I’m putting you both on the post tomorrow,” he says.

It’s the first time Mingyu will ever do this. Joshua doesn’t think he’ll last.

“Why both of us?” Joshua mumbles out. His eyes are slipping shut. Mingyu’s hands tighten on his back as he adjusts in his sleep. 

“You need to be able to see each other bleed, and I need to be able to train you, especially after this.” Jeonghan smirks, eyes dark. “And, I like the way you look when I’m finished with you. I’ll make you scream, then I’ll patch you up and make you beg me to do it again.”

Joshua shivers, worms his way up and kisses Jeonghan, all tongue and teeth and anticipation.

The life of a hunter is danger and uncertainty, staring death in the face and doing what must be done in spite of it. It’s pain and blood and wounds that feel like they’ll never heal, but they always do. It’s knives and stakes, thankless work, but maybe it’s this too. Mingyu’s warm hands on his back and Jeonghan’s tongue against the roof of his mouth. The kind of pleasure pain he’s always associated with Jeonghan, with the life he stumbled into.

He’ll take the whip, anything Jeonghan throws at him really, because at the end of it he’ll have two people ready to kiss him better.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/woncheoling) // [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/tsukkitaeil)


End file.
